Manny Ramirez doesn’t pitch in as Dodgers fall to Rockies, 8-0
Good news: Manny Ramirez returned to the field for the Dodgers Saturday after sitting out 14 games because of a right calf strain.
Bad news: Whatever boost he brings will come in the batter’s box, not on the pitcher’s mound.
This point was ominously foreshadowed before the Dodgers’ 8-0 loss to Colorado by Manager Joe Torre when he was asked if Ramirez’ return would send the Dodgers surging.
“He can’t pitch,” Torre said. “Our ability to go on a surge is going to be based on how well we pitch and how well we control the game.”
Ramirez can’t pitch, and the rest of the Dodgers don’t seem to be able to either — or at least not much these days.
Knuckeballer Charlie Haeger got off to a disastrous start, giving up four runs without getting an out before being pulled in the first inning, and the Dodgers couldn’t climb out of that hole, snapping a two-game winning streak and dropping them to 13-17.
The knuckleball is considered by hitters an unpredictable pitch, but Torre said Thursday that it can’t really be managed either. “You just watch it and hope that the result is good,” he said.
It wasn’t Saturday. After giving up a single to Seth Smith, Haeger walked the next three batters and gave up a bases-clearing triple to Carlos Gonzalez, giving the Rockies a 4-0 lead with no outs in the first.
Torre pulled him after that, making Haeger the first Dodgers starting pitcher to not record a single out since Shawn Hillegas got yanked after giving up four runs on 17 pitches against the Houston Astros on Aug. 8, 1988.
“They just knocked the daylights out of him,” former manager Tommy Lasorda reminisced of that game, “so I said, ‘Well, it doesn’t look like he’s got it for today.’”
Neither did Haeger. The Dodgers have now lost 10 straight games in which he has pitched, including seven this season.
Was that the fastest Torre had ever pulled a starting pitcher out of a game? “Probably,” Torre said. “Things happened quickly and the thing is when he wasn’t getting the knuckleball over, obviously he had the walks. And then when he was, they were getting hits. So, it was one of those Catch-22s.”
Haeger is now now 0-4 with an 8.49 earned-run average after his four-runs-in-22-pitch performance that earned a shower of boos from the crowd as he exited.
“I had some trouble getting the ball down tonight, walked three guys,” he said. “You’re going to get hurt.”
Was that his shortest outing?
“Yeah, of my life, period.
Ramon Ortiz replaced him, but Ortiz gave up a two-run, dead-center home run to the first batter he faced, Ian Stewart.
Score: 6-0, Colorado. And still no outs.
The game wasn’t much of one from there. The Rockies added a run in the second inning and another in the sixth.
The Dodgers didn’t do much except for Andre Ethier, who went three for three, raising his average to .394.
Oh, and there was Ramirez, whose return fell on the one-year anniversary of his starting a 50-game suspension for violating baseball’s drug policy. He had been batting 415 in 13 games thus far this season, but went one for four Saturday.
He grounded out in his first at-bat, lined out in his second, flied out in his third and blooped a single in the eighth inning in his fourth, moving Matt Kemp to third base with one out. But they couldn’t break the shutout.
But if 42,287 in attendance had something to cheer about, it came when the scoreboard flashed the score of the Lakers’ 111-110 playoff win against the Utah Jazz..
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